I've been forming some thoughts about the trouble we have accepting the idea of original sin, and inheritance of the curse.
There was also a post by OP about grace that spurred this, but I can't seem to locate it.

God did not place man unsupervised in the Garden.
He had woman with him.
God also walked in the cool of the day in the garden.

Adam was told to dress the garden and KEEP it, to defend it from outside invaders.
Adam failed at this, too.


I think that this is a common objection, and one worthy of a response.

But first, I'll lay some groundwork.
In the book of Leviticus 4:3, we find this verse:

We know that prophets speak to man for God.
We know that priests speak to God for man.
There is an intermediary system in place.
Man could not stand before God face to face because of Adam's decision to recreate himself.
He simply no longer possessed the key to unlock the door to god's presence.
Here in the above verse we see that the priest could sin, and the people might bear the consequences.
This is the downside of the system.

However, there is an upside.
In the next verse...

The priest lays his hand on its head because sin, or condemnation, is transferred to the bull.
The priest or the people do not have to bear the wrath of God.
The upside of the system was that it allowed animals to serve as sin offerings.

Think of the Garden of Eden; After God removed Adam from the garden, the very first thing he does is sacrifice a few animals for man, making him and her coats of skin.

Another upside, is that without this system, Jesus could not be our advocate, our sin offering.

But why can't we stand before the presence of God?
Be Ye Holy, Because God is holy.

You can't walk into the presence of God for the same reason you can't just stroll into a contaminated radiation zone.
You aren't protected.
You would need a special suit, some special gear to get close.
Think of God radiating holiness, and corruptable flesh would be contaminated or annihilated if it came within a certain radius.
God is the epicenter of holiness.

Keeping all of this in mind, I think the best analogy I can use comes from the Troy movie.
Near the beginning, two armies face off.
The leaders meet in the center and decide that in order to avoid the loss of a lot of life, they will just send their respective best fighters out to do battle.
Achilles comes out and slays his opponent without much effort.
The people of the defeated warrior inherit servitude, but keep their lives.

Adam was given dominion and authority over all animal life.
We know that biblically, adam possessed maximum potential for good.
Paul refers to Adam as "the type" of He who is to come (Jesus) (Romans 5:14).
Jesus is referred to as the "second Adam."
The whole point of Luke's genealogy is to make this connection between Jesus and Adam (Luke 3:38).
Therefore, Adam was our best fighter.

If Adam were here right now, he would represent us as our best chance against the devil.
We may inherit servitude, but our lives will be spared.
We can still find salvation another day, and through another way.

I think it is a good thing, and the best way for us, that this is the way God arranged things.
I don't want to be responsible for all of my sins.
I sin daily.
I'd be in deep trouble come a judgment based on works, in which I have no advocate.

This is a good thing; not a bad thing.

But this is not the end of the story.

Paul says in Romans 3:23 that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."
Everything that Paul says later, in the chapters to come, where he lays the framework for original sin -- is under the burden of this truth.
All have sinned.
All have fallen short.
You. Me. Adam.

Let you who is without sin cast the first stone at Adam.


Edit: It might also shed light on the whole idea of reconciliation to understand that adam was not kicked from the garden because he sinned, but because he might eat of the tree of life, eternally separating himself from God.

Are you serious?

tldr
cliffs?

Yes.
This is under the context of the old testament, leviticus-era.

I should have been more clear (though I thought the context was assumed).

What is the purpose of the Priesthood now?

Not really on topic.

However, I think it might aid you in understanding reconciliation to understand that adam was not kicked from the garden because he sinned, but because he might eat of the tree of life, thereby eternally separating himself from god.

Don't answer the question if you don't want to, but it was you who wrote ...

I can create another thread.

I read your post twice, and had a hard time connecting any of the bible quotes with what you said. Or at least, I could see that what you said might be able to be interpreted as consistent with the bible quotes, but not that they were necessary consequences of it.

However, most of this is moot. Whatever the proximate details of the garden are or are not, the ultimate cause is the same: god causes man, therefore whatever man causes in a proximate way, god is ultimately responsible for. Unless one doesn't believe in syllogisms of causality.

So I should go to jail if my adult son murders someone?

A causing B is a necessary - but not sufficient - condition for giving to A the moral responsibility of B. The causal syllogism remains obviously true your example, but it is not sufficient to assign you moral responsibility. You may not have known your son would commit murder, you may not have had the power to stop it, other influences may have had causes that originated from other people than you. However, for god all of these things are true.

edit: there is some technicalities regarding to what extent an inaction is itself an action which does affect the "necessary" part but I think this is irrelevant to the silliness in this thread

Your original statement states that whatever man causes "in a proximate way," god is ultimately responsible for.

But now you add all of these very specific factors that might abdicate a creator of moral responsibility.

Why not just add one more?

The whole purpose of the post was to form a plausible response to skeptics' objection to the 'unfairness' of original sin.
I have seen the objection multiple times.

This seems like a silly response. The original argument can easily be altered to

I don't understand what relevance this has. Was he there to supervise? If so, he didn't do a very good job. If not, then it has no relevance to your argument.

No, but apparently, according to your reasoning, your adult son should be punished for any sins that you do.

I think this is the comment to which you were referring:

This is a fine illustration of why I think the doctrine of Original Sin and grace are bad ideas. It seems to me to rely on a pre-modern understanding of the relationship between the citizens of a society and its leader. Imagine if we went to war with China, and instead of fighting with armies, Hu Jintao and Barack Obama decided to face each other in an MMA match to determine the outcome of the contest.

If Obama lost, none of us would think that this justifies Hu Jintao taking us as slaves. This is because we think that slavery is immoral--regardless of who wins such a fight. Thus, regardless, the story of Adam's fall doesn't justify our being placed in bondage to sin or the devil.

However, there is a more serious problem with this story. There is some reason to think that Obama could fairly represent us in such a fight--he is the elected leader of our country. However, there is no reason to think that Adam was our representative in some ancient conflict in the Garden of Eden. Not only did I not vote for him, I didn't even get a vote at all. So why should I regard him as representing me?

The only plausible justification for this that I can see is one based on a patriarchal view of the family, where the patriarch is regarded as the natural leader of the family. In this sense, if you think that Adam was the patriarch of the human race you might he is somehow the natural leader of the human race, and so his standing in for us is justified. But that just seems crazy. Patriarchal authority doesn't go that far. Parents can speak for their children when they are still children, but once their children become adults, they are no longer under the authority of their parents. I'm an adult now, so I don't see how Adam has any authority over me. If he wants to sin, fine, but don't blame that on me.

Here is where we go back to my original comments. I do want to be responsible for my sins--that seems like a necessary part of being a mature adult. What I don't want is to be held to an unfair standard. And the standard of perfection--of never sinning--seems to me obviously unfair. And that is the real issue here. According to Christians, God has decided to use perfection as the standard of worthiness. That just seems completely wrong to me. There are good and very worthy people who have flaws. How is it that I, a selfish and fallible human being can recognize this but God cannot? Telling me that God is so perfect herself that she just can't handle being around people who aren't perfect as well just makes God seem like a stuck-up jerk. After all, one of the reasons we admire Jesus is because he didn't do that--that he didn't mind hanging out with the sinners and lowly of society. It looks like the God talked about by these Christians could learn a little forbearance from Jesus.

Right, here we come to the heart of the matter. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Of course we have. We aren't gods ourselves, and so expecting us to act as if we were gods is unreasonable. It seems to me that it is God that should stop casting stones at us just for being what we are.

The bolded is incorrect. Responsibility does not transfer through free will acts, which are by definition externally uncaused.

Adam and Eve are a myth.

Now what?

How about now you stop making declarations that contradict a premise of the discussion set up in the OP?

The premise of Adam and Eve is unsound. Therefore, all conclusions drawn are faulted.

There never was Adam and Eve therefore no original sin as the story claims...

I think I ought to be allowed to expand in more detail on a one sentence explanation from earlier without it being implied I am caught in some trap. The point was that just because some proximate entity is the direct causer of an event does not absolve the ultimate entity. Causal syllogism is a necessary - but not sufficient - condition, and despite your protestations I am was not claiming the sufficient part. I elaborated on the various factors that DO add in the sufficiency side to overwhelmingly make god culpable for the evil of man, but it is not causality alone.

You walk a very thin line, btw, when you say that you should not be jailed for the sin of your son. I agree. Yet you would have me and every person that has ever lived or ever will lived condemned for a sin they could not possibly have ever committed. There is a reason why you would not be thrown in jail with your son. According to human understanding of morality and how we practice it here on earth, the very idea is morally repugnant to the deepest degree. If you want to define morality was whatever it is god says, then by definition it is moral. But if you want us to impart our human sense of morality, it must be rejected in the strongest terms for the nonsense it is.

You are still free to pretend if you want to.

This forum "is strictly for entertainment and informational purposes only".

In this thread you are providing the entertainment, and other people are providing the information.

No matter how you swing it, in a war, your role in the outcome is negligible.
If two armies face off, and you are busy coding for a software company, you are inheriting servitude or freedom or whatever-- deserved or undeserved.
I don't see a major distinction.

I stated that Adam represents maximum potential realized, much like Achilles.
If Achilles cannot defeat a certain warrior, than neither can any of us.
You would be engaging in a futile battle.

I'm glad you brought up authority, actually.

Adam was given dominion and authority.
He wasn't so much protecting a tree, or a garden, but his claim over the earth.
He gave it up.
He sold off the deed.

If your parents own a business, and are wealthy, and sell it off, and donate the money to the church, it may not seem fair to you, as a 12 year old who thought he had this great inheritance coming, but it legalistically and morally acceptable.
They had the deeds, and they sold them off, and they gave it away.
You will not inherit that 'kingdom.'

Adam was a wartime creation.
He was created in the context of a war.
It is easy to forget that there was an adversarial conflict taking place.

I'll just quote from another post I made on this:






Let me show you some of Paul's language:

Furthermore, the gift itself redresses any injustice done by the offense.
Adam betrays God and sins.
He breaks his covenant.
We are born under a new covenant.
Under this covenant, we have to believe, and confess.
We don't have to strictly adhere to 1368 laws.
We have to believe.
We have to confess Jesus as Lord.
This is seriously not placing a great burden on us.

I don't see this as "crazy" or unjust.

That deal is about as merciful as you can get, considering that you are born of an enemy, and in enemy territory.

God's existence would negate free will (as if it even exists to begin with).

As I said here...

Under the auspices of an omnipotent being, nothing could possibly happen unless it was intended by him. Responsibilty automatically falls on any observer with the power to change a foreseeable outcome.

If a child is certainly about to be hit by a car and you know you can certainly save her by calling out, you are completely responsible for her death if you stand silent and watch, because you had the power to prevent it.

Because you had the power to prevent it, if you had *intended* her not to die, you would have called out.

If you (or a god) have the same infallible foresight and power with regards to everything in reality, you (or a god) are completely responsible for everything in reality.

In this scenario the church is God. They have the power to restore your inheritance but they sit by and watch you, your children, and your children's children get royally screwed.


The A&E myth is a shambles which, like so much Christian doctrine, supposes an all-powerful being whose hands are somehow tied.